Whowouldhavethought…? Thank You!… And a POLL

These days it has been two years since a bunch of us Volcanophiles started Volcano Hotspot – who would have thought that we are still at it in 2017? As such things go, we have dwindled to just two of us, but we are enjoying this immensely and sure hope for another couple volcanic years together. And here’s a big THANK YOU to you, our readers! Some of you are old acquaintances faithfully dropping in for every new post but many have joined us lately, giving us more pluck and the confidence that we are doing something useful for you.

P O L L

So far, Agimarc and I have been writing what was on our mind. As we find that our readers are not exactly of the chatting (commenting) type, to find out what in particular you would like to read about I have prepared a poll for you. You can choose multiple themes that would interest you, or type new ones in the small box. It is anonymous, but of course you are free to leave a comment below.

I have also included the option “I would like to contribute…”. That means we are inviting interested readers to do a guest post every now and then. You do not need to be an expert – some people have got quite a bit of knowledge in their field of interest/hobby! (Contributing is easy enough, just let us know beforehand what your post will be about and then send us the text and any images you would like to go with it by email). On the other hand, if you are a professional geologist/volcanologist we would naturally love to see you occasionally sharing some of your knowledge with us! We’ll move this poll to the sidebar hereafter so you can cast a vote every once in a while.

Two guest writers would like to try a hand, and the suggestion of more posts about the Cascade Range has been made. We have moved the poll to the side bar and would love to get a few more suggestions for future posts. Not that we find it hard to find a volcano to write about, no shortage there – just want to know what people would like to read.

SOME STATISTICS of “Volcano Hotspot”

You have been doing great over the last two years, thanks again!– 28 825 Unique Visitors have just crossed the sonic barrier with– 101 170 Site Viewsbut never topped the– 1 360 Views on our Opening Day. This is our– 96th Post.
We had visitors from most countries except from some in northern-central Africa and – Greenland! Our most viewers came from the U.S.A., followed by the U.K. and – the Netherlands! Who said stats are boring?

NEW BLOG LAYOUT

To crown the festivities we have decided on a new dress for our blog. When we chose the previous layout we had to make concessions towards readability and we were never quite happy with the result. Now that WordPress finally got around to let us customise font types and sizes (at least a few), and also developed new and nice themes, we’ve had another go at designing Volcano Hotspot. We might have to tweak the one or other detail over the coming days but it should be cleaner and faster now, and also more suitable for mobile devices. Hope you like it, let us know what you think of it and whether it works on your iPhone etc.

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23 comments on “Whowouldhavethought…? Thank You!… And a POLL”

On Wednesday SERNAGEOMIN called a yellow alert for the Chilean/Argentinean volcano Lanín. A seismic swarm of VT, LP earthquakes and tremor occured simultaneously and further development might go towards instability of the volcanic system.

And from Science Direct – an article about what scientists are calling a new continent in the raised sea floor around New Zealand to the east of Oz. And we thought the science was settled. This is why we keep on looking, taking data and trying to figure out what that data means, as from time to time we discover things that have been staring us in the face for centuries. Don’t know if these guys are correct. But I do know the discussion will be most interesting. Cheers –

In terms of articles I like most, I always enjoy anything that invites further discussion or allows me to learn a new facet of volcanology. I think a lot of the articles on here have more or less just mentioned the facts about a specific volcano. Perhaps some more room for speculation and such will invite further commentary?

Great. At the risk of being overly silly, perhaps “An Interestingly Titled Post on Mount Adams”? It would have a certain Monty Python-esque flavor to it with the obvious Python hook. Would also be a great jumping off point for a wide ranging exploration far outside the bounds of our regular fare, ultimately very, very cool. Do it. It’ll be fun. Cheers –

Interesting: Horizontal sliding of kilometre-scale hot spring area near Aso volcano (Uchinomaki): In the 2016 Kumamoto earthquake a roughly circular, ~2 km x 50 m thick (deep) block of horizontal surface in the hydrothermal area shifted 1 m NW. This left drill pipes bent, some wells blocked and others opened spontaneously. Compressional features like crushed concrete road appeared on one side and intensive open fissures up to 1 m on the other… Scientists find that the horizontal sliding was not caused by gravitational forces, or at least not in the “normal” landslide fashion, nor was it caused by fault rupture…

I enjoyed reading the articles over the last two years, congrats on the anniversary!

The redesign is extremely difficult for me to read with my vision problems. White type on a dark background causes blurry halos around each letter, plus each line of type has an echoing afterimage when I shift my eyes while reading. Trying to read an article with the new design is such an overall unpleasant visual experience that I will probably not visit the blog much in the future.

Hi Ingrid, thanks for your feedback, and I am very sorry about your problems with readability (probably they are not only your’s…). I thought I had found the better solution with the gray as opposed to a “white text”. Unfortunately, the font color cannot be changed generally, nor the background color in the text area. Would it help to increase the text size, perhaps, or use a different font type? I have tried the bigger text for a start. If you like, I could invite you into our “playground” area so that you can try different options for yourself? You’d have to send us an email to get an invitation link.

Thanks for replying! Yes, gray text is definitely better than white. In fact, the most readable is the time stamp under your reply, light gray on darker gray! I will take you up on your kind offer and send an email in the next day or two.